


A Few Notes

by ewinfic



Series: Unlikely [2]
Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: F/M, Logistics, Science, technicalities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5039017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewinfic/pseuds/ewinfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex in space comes with a certain number of complications.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Few Notes

**Author's Note:**

> This piece may be considered a sequel to What Could Happen, but it also stands on its own. I wanted to write a discussion of sex that fit in with the tone of the novel. Please note: at least half of this is taken directly out of my ass and has no relation to real science or NASA policy whatsoever.

Sex in space comes with a certain number of complications.

Pregnancy and disease are not among these, fortunately. Beth knew that she and Chris had both been cleared by medtechs to be free of any and all kinds of infections and viruses for weeks prior to the launch. That still left the tidy little collection of bacteria and viruses that Chris had brought with him for experiments in zero G, but he had a number of antiseptic procedures that he had to follow whenever he dealt with _those_ , so Beth didn't worry too much about them. As far as an unwanted pregnancy in space goes, Beth was on a powerful hormone therapy that not only prevented pregnancy but also menstruation nine months out of the year. NASA had made it clear to her that the therapy was "optional", meanwhile excessively detailing the type of horrifying birth defects that could result from a fetus developing in a mostly zero G environment. Beth had opted in. And why not, after all? Menstruation in space comes with its own complications, and she was happy to skip them as much as possible.

So having unprotected sex that first time with Chris was really no big deal.

In fact, there weren't many ways around it. NASA would nod and wink at a surprising number of things with the knowledge that time in space can be hard, but they would never risk the PR disaster that would take place if it got out that they were equipping their astronauts with a several-year supply of condoms. First of all there are the logistics to justify: say a crew of six individuals means 3 couplings for the group (one can't assume heteronormativity these days), and say each crew member feels like having sex roughly twice a week. That ends up being 312 condoms needed per year, bumping it up to 400 for a reasonable factor of safety. Say a mission lasts three years, 1200 condoms total needed. At 4cm wide and .5cm thick, you end up with a crate of condoms roughly 9.6 cubic meters in size that you have to justify to the storage committee who have to make the most of every cubic centimeter on board Hermes, and that doesn't include incidental concerns such as boredom, tearing, supplemental lube, and the fact that condoms expire. And then you would have to explain to the world why the married people were included in your calculations (they were included because _human beings_ ).

It was an open secret that vasectomies were a popular procedure among male astronauts. With the promise of reversal, of course. On at least one memorable occasion during pre-selection, long before she was assured a spot on Ares3, one of the members of Ares2 had offered his vasectomy as a reason that Beth should have sex with him. Beth, unaccustomed to random offers of sex contingent upon medical procedures, had turned him down somewhat nervously, wondering if that was what she had to look forward to on her three-year tour.

She had never counted on Chris. The situation being what it was, she was grateful for the birth control therapy, because she intended to have scandalous (if not technically obscene) amounts of sex with him.

There were other concerns. Time, for one. NASA through long experience knew that unstructured time in space was a recipe for disaster, so schedules were kept deliberately tight. Add that to the surprising number of things that required daily maintenance on the Hermes, and the days were very full for every crew member. Daily schedules roughly consisted of 8 hours for sleep, an hour and a half for meals, one hour of exercise, a half hour for hygiene, two hours system diagnostics (of whatever system one was in charge of; for Beth this meant the computer, for Chris it meant the crew), one hour physical diagnostics (literally going through the ship and checking for malfunctions), four hours of "science in space" (every crew member had a set of experiments to monitor each day for the scientists back home), one hour for the daily one-on-one brief with Commander Lewis, one hour for the daily crew meeting, and that left four hours "free". Those four hours were often used to address any problems found during the daily diagnostic procedures.

Time could be created, though. There was some redundancy programmed into those daily tasks to provide slack time in case of emergencies. And after the first few months, most of the crew were able to perform the ship diagnostics and experiments in half the time allotted for them, even providing for the regular switching of tasks among the crew to prevent burnout. The time gained was occasionally filled with extra tasks given by Commander Lewis, but not too often. "Free" time became freer as the mission progressed as well; messages home became shorter and more infrequent, novels and study material were completed and put away, hobbies were tired of, and socializing became less necessary as the crew began to function more as the parts of a single body and less as a group of individuals. Then there was the fact that Chris wasn't kept too busy until someone got sick, and Beth wasn't kept too busy until the computer malfunctioned, but time had to be provided for these possibilities whether they happened that day or not. By the time Chris and Beth had begun the physical aspect of their relationship, any viruses that might have stowed away on board were long dead and any malicious bacteria long adjusted to and any cooties already widely shared, and the ship's computer's main job was "keep going in this direction, okay?" So they in particular had hours to spare.

Sex in zero G was a mess, but fortunately crew quarters were among the rooms nearest the outer skin of the ship, spinning to emulate roughly half earth gravity. Sex in half gravity still had its share of problems. Their first time had been over in a few minutes, but as the weeks went on, they grew accustomed to each others' bodies and found ways to stretch that time out. That was when the trouble began. Chris was 6'2" and squarely built, and had experienced years of sex at home with the assistance of full gravity; especially in missionary position, gravity made thrusting easy and pulling out more difficult. He quickly realized that his abdominal wall had to be strengthened to ensure he could keep thrusting as hard as he (and Beth) wanted, and to prevent his hips from flying upwards on the out-thrust as they pushed against gravity that wasn't sufficient to hold them down. When Beth was on top, similar physics applied, and she bumped her head against the low ceiling of the bunk more than a few times before getting the hang of fucking in half gravity. They both learned to use a hip-rolling motion more than a simple in-and-out and quickly discovered that was nicer anyway, but it required the use of muscles not commonly exercised during simple earth sex.

Then there was the showering problem. Both of them were accustomed on earth to being able to shower before or after sex as appropriate; neither of those things happened aboard the Hermes. While the ship did have faucets and ample water, showers were not an option. They strained the water reclaimer. Urine was comparatively easy to reclaim compared to the gray-water waste of a shower, which contained far more sticky particulates--mostly dead skin cells--and soap which is surprisingly difficult to remove. The accepted hygiene practice on board was to use rough wiping cloths to slough off dead skin cells (the cloths were then vacuum-cleaned) and then to finish with a quick sponge bath. Shaving was done dry, with a small vacuum funnel used to suck up the hairs afterward. Waxing was a luxury of the past. And there was a designated time of day to shower, which didn't always coincide with free time. Sex under these conditions required a little more tolerance for sweat and stink than earth sex would have. Cunnilingus was politely not mentioned. Beth's two or three menses per year were declared sexual DMZs.

Oral sex would have been a bad idea anyway, at least for Beth. She had to worry about a particular phenomenon prone to happen when a woman goes from not having sex for a year to abruptly having lots and lots of it: urinary tract infections. Sex is very hard on a woman's urinary system. The bacteria naturally present in Beth's urine was liable to cause trouble if any bruising or bleeding happened, and adding the bacteria from Chris's mouth to it without the option of showering afterward was a recipe for disaster. Avoiding oral sex didn't completely negate the possibility of infection, but fortunately, Beth was having sex with the _doctor_.

Once all of this was accounted for, Chris and Beth managed a more than reasonable sex life. They managed to get together several times a week, behaved professionally with each other the rest of the time, performed their duties admirably, kept up with the efforts to rescue Mark Watney, shared private conversations and intimate secrets, laughed together, occasionally cried together, even more occasionally managed to _sleep_ together, were cautious, discreet, nonchalant, and fooled just about nobody.


End file.
